


I know you're not alone (On the night shift)

by kate_the_reader



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Comfort, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Prompt Fic, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 02:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17778569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_the_reader/pseuds/kate_the_reader
Summary: Arthur and Eames spend time together and become friends and then more.





	I know you're not alone (On the night shift)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dasyatidae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasyatidae/gifts).



> This is a gift for dasyatidae, who prompted "night shift", hope you like it!
> 
> And many thanks to oceaxe, who always helps me improve my stories.

Arthur could pinpoint when it had started. When he and Eames had slipped from being slightly prickly colleagues into friendship. 

He’d looked up from his laptop one quiet evening in the office he’d rented for a job in Columbus, Ohio; looked up and leaned back in the uncomfortable chair and rolled his shoulders to ease the tension there and glanced over his shoulder and seen Eames sitting in the corner of the ratty sofa, reading.

He recalled saying: “What are you doing?” and Eames had said, mildly, with the merest hint of a smirk at the obviousness of the answer: “Reading”, and held up a paperback novel. Arthur had frowned and said: “I can see that. Why?” To which Eames had replied, his smile wider, but still close-mouthed: “To find out whodunnit.”

The office had been dim, one light on the desk Arthur was using, the other, a standard lamp that looked borrowed from a grandmother’s living room, next to the couch, painting Eames golden.

“But why here, now? Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your hotel room?”

Eames had frowned, as if the question didn’t make sense. “And leave you here all alone?” And then he’d grinned. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m busy. And I'm a big boy, you know. I’ll be okay here alone.” But Arthur had smiled too, keeping the mood light, because it actually was quite nice to have company, especially if Eames was just going to sit there reading, not come over to lounge on the edge of Arthur’s desk, one thigh hitched up, to distract him.

“Sure you will,” Eames had said, “But who’d get you coffee?” And he’d put his book down, splayed on the couch cushion, and stood up and headed for the door. “Latte?” he’d said, his hand on the knob.

Arthur knew he hadn’t told Eames he preferred milky coffee when he was working late, needing the caffeine, but wanting the comfort. “Um,” he’d said, feeling a bit wrong-footed, but also warm at the solicitude, “yes please.” To which Eames had said: “Right you are,” which was so amusingly British, and clattered down the stairs. And returned a little while later, setting a tall cup on Arthur’s desk, and next to it a paper bag. “Brought you something to eat.” A blueberry muffin.

After that, whenever Arthur had worked late, Eames had simply stayed behind, reading, never intruding on Arthur’s thoughts, but always going out for coffee, or takeout.

Arthur had started to look forward to those quiet evenings, and had found Eames a useful sounding board and a helpful second mind to bring to bear on whatever problem he’d been poking at. And he’d wondered if anyone else had noticed the difference in their relationship — Arthur less prickly, Eames less needling.

After several jobs like that, they’d stopped parting in the hallway of their hotel after sharing a taxi back following what Arthur privately thought of as “night shifts”. 

They hadn’t made a big deal of it, one night they’d still been arguing over a problem in the elevator, and Eames had followed him to his room door, still talking, and stopped as he slipped the keycard in, and stepped inside after him and Arthur had turned to him outside the bathroom door and Eames had looked at him with a tiny crease between his eyebrows and Arthur had put his hand on Eames’ shoulder and leaned in and kissed him.

Eames hadn’t gone back to his room until morning.

They’d kept on getting two rooms, of course; but no one except the chambermaids would have known that only one was ever slept in.

At first, they had parted and each returned to his own between-jobs home, but one day Eames had turned up on his New York doorstep, carrying two tall coffees in a takeout holder, and said: “Don’t you think this is a bit silly?” 

Arthur had nodded and reached for one of the coffees and Eames had picked up his bag and come inside.

Eames hadn’t left in the morning.

But they’d still kept it quiet.

They often worked together, the expense of two hotel rooms a necessary fiction — dreamshare was such a small, gossipy community. 

Arthur wasn’t sure if Eames would have minded if others had known, although he was a lot more private than some people realised, and more used to dissembling. The way he’d quietly stayed in that office in Columbus reading a novel had made Arthur aware there was a silence, a privacy, a guardedness to Eames, for all his teasing levity in public. It was that, finally, that had made Arthur first kiss him, outside the bathroom door in a room in a boring corporate hotel. 

Arthur himself had relished their privacy, had enjoyed keeping him and Eames a secret. If the tone of their exchanges had noticeably shifted, from prickly to fond, no one else had ever said anything. 

Their night shifts had continued, sometimes in whatever space Arthur had rented for the job, other times in one of their hotel rooms. Whenever Arthur had to work late, Eames took out a book and sat and read quietly, or helped as needed. And he always went out to get coffee. 

—————

It was in Prague that Arthur had first got his chance to do the same. Eames had to forge a sleazy businessman, an underworld fixer, who worked late in his office meeting people, making deals. They had been lucky enough to find an empty room across the street for Eames to use as a spy base; he could sit in the dark room and watch his target’s transactions playing out like a film. Arthur should have been working himself, but the office had been far too quiet without the sound of Eames turning the pages of a novel, far too empty without his presence, and Arthur's shoulders had got horribly tight without Eames’ strong hands to knead the tension out of them. 

Arthur had let himself into the building quietly, balancing two coffees and a bag of pastries, and quietly climbed the stairs. He had stopped outside Eames’ dark hideout, put the coffees down and knocked softly. He had been straightening up when Eames opened the door a crack.

“Arthur? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I … night shift,” Arthur had said, holding out the coffees.

“Night shift?”

“Yes. You always keep me company. It’s my turn now.”

Then Eames had opened the door wide, and opened his arms wide and Arthur had stepped into them, careful not to spill hot coffee. He had felt Eames’ mouth smiling against his skin as he kissed Arthur’s cheekbone and then his mouth.

They had sat quietly together in the dark, sipping coffee and eating pastries as Eames watched the target. Arthur had watched Eames work, careful not to distract his focus. After a while, Eames had started to describe what he was noticing, details he would use to create the forge, quirks Arthur could hardly discern, his voice a soft, intimate rumble in the dark.

When the man had finished his meetings and switched off his office light and left, they’d waited in the dark a while and then gone out into the midnight street and walked back to their hotel, through the old town square, empty and shadowed, and across the Charles Bridge, where they weren’t the only strollers among the statues overlooking the swiftly flowing river.

The next morning, Eames had said to Arthur: “I enjoyed my night shift. Thank you for keeping me company.”

“Like you always do for me,” Arthur had said.

—————

That’s how it had started, how they each became the person who waits up with you when you have to work late; the person whose presence calms you and grounds you and makes sense of the world for you. It’s not as if they can’t ever be apart, they take jobs on separate continents sometimes, but the world, their world of secrets and danger, makes more sense to them when they sit quietly, working, or reading, together.

—————

Arthur’s not sure he can pinpoint when it started. When going under to dream for others started to steal his own sleep. He’s always had bouts of insomnia, even as a kid. He’s always been a worrier; it’s part of why he’s so good at his job. A problem will keep him awake, and often a solution will present itself. 

Lately though, it’s been getting worse. Or perhaps it just seems worse, because Eames has been such a solid, calm presence in his bed, even when they haven't fallen asleep pleasantly tired after sex, that Arthur can’t actually remember the last time he lay awake poking at a problem. Maybe because he has Eames to worry at problems with him.

And this sleeplessness is all the worse for its pointlessness. With no reason to be awake, no problem to puzzle over, he just lies there, staring into the dark, or turns on his side and looks at the way the streetlight leaking in through the blinds outlines Eames’ face — his straight nose, his long lashes, his beloved mouth. He tries not to wake Eames with his tossing, till finally he gives in and gets up, and steps silently through to the living room, turns on a lamp and tries to read. It might take hours, but he usually exhausts himself into sleep. 

One night he’s reading a novel taken from Eames’ collection at random, a tale of seafaring, when Eames comes blinking into the light.

“What are you doing up?” His voice is soft and blurry with sleep.

“Couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to wake you. Reading for a while usually helps. Go back to bed, Eames.”

Eames rubs his hand through his hair and down his face. “How many nights?”

“Not many,” Arthur says hastily, “One or two. It’s not a thing.” It is very nearly a thing, he’s been wondering if he should see a doctor for something to help. If it’s a dreamshare thing, perhaps he should ask a chemist. “Don’t worry, Eames. You can go back to bed, I’ll be just a while.”

But Eames comes into the room, of course, and sits down next to Arthur. “What are you reading?”

Arthur holds up the book. “One of yours.”

Eames’ face lights up. “O’Brian! But that’s from the middle of the series.” He gets up and goes over to the bookshelf and comes back with an even more dog-eared paperback. “This is the first one. I love these books. I first read them at school. They’ve got me through some long nights.” He sits down again. “Shall I read to you, darling? Send you to sleep with my drone?”

Arthur’s eyes are tired, but his brain won’t shut down. He should just get some audiobooks, probably, if this is going to keep happening. “I don’t want you to be awake too, though.”

“Nonsense,” says Eames. “It’s a night shift. I always read on night shifts.” Arthur can hear the tenderness in the sensible tone he’s adopted. “Come, lie down.” He holds out his hand. Arthur hesitates at first, to lay his head in Eames’ lap like a child. “Lie down, darling,” Eames insists. So Arthur does, breathing in the comforting sleep warmth of Eames’ skin. Eames opens the book. “I hope you love this,” he says. 

Arthur closes his eyes as Eames starts, his voice a well-loved, intimate rumble: “The music-room in the Governor’s House in Port Mahon …”*

Eames’ lays his hand on Arthur’s head and combs his fingers softly through his hair as in the book, a naval captain and an out of work physician meet each other, needling at first, but then shifting to partnership and on towards friendship.

**Author's Note:**

> *The first line of the first book in Patrick O’Brian’s 20-book Aubrey-Maturin series.


End file.
